Evaluation of three tests for the detection of rabbit haemorrhagic diseasevirus in wild rabbits

Two double antibody sandwich ELISA kits and the immunoblot were evaluated f or the detection of rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) virus in wild rabbits . Either liver alone or liver and spleen separately or a pool of liver and spleen tissues from 106 wild rabbits were tested in all three tests. They p roduced very similar results, except that ELISA kit A gave three doubtful r esults which were confirmed as negative by retesting in the same test and b y the immunoblot and ELISA kit B. Both ELISA kits can be used for the rapid detection of acute RHD, and ELISA kit A can detect both acute and chronic RHD virus infection. The immunoblot is useful as a confirmatory test when E LISA-positive results do not correlate with gross and/or histopathological findings.